30.1.09

Fähnlein Fieselschweif was a bizarre orchestrated project involving a bunch of Hamburg post-punkers supplied with some smarties and unusual instruments and told to go and make a record because it'd be trendy and someone would pay for it no sweat. The result? Pluto is music for aliens, Reh beats out the kind of rhythms your heart would make if you saw one, and as you check the back of the sleeve to try and work out what the hell is going on, bingo, Holger Hiller was pulling the strings from the mixing desk. It all sounds like a smashed up train set, and the strange journey concludes with a Kinderparty, a short jam on the Casio VL-1. The VL-1 tone was a weapon of sorts and an absolute compulsory battery operated child's toy for the sarcastic German New Waver. Even Matthias Schuster, back turned away from the flash of the camera, gravely holds one up like a knife on the front of Atemlos. The VL-1 jam is probably now a compulsive ritualistic past-time for the German New Wave crowd (albeit balder and more wrinkly nowadays), perhaps whipped out during a picnic or motorway pile-up for a bit of Da Da Da?

This Will Destroy You live @ Visions Party, Köln, Die Werkstatt, 01.11.08Threads / Freedom Blade / The World Is Our... / Burial On The Presidio Banks / They Move On Tracks Of Never-Ending Light / (Interview) (download)

Summary: Well, post rock is dead, long live instrumental music. So to make up your own opinion about this subject here are 30 minutes live sound of This Will Destroy You and 52 minutes various instrumental tunes mostly older than 20 years. What do I want to prove with this? At least I’m not one of those bloggers who just post records without any comments, although you should check out Happy New Wave!

Summary: Bernd Begemann, the "electric singer/songwriter" started his recording career nearly 25 years ago and still is not recognized in a way that he deserves. Here are some rare recordings from a promotional record from 1987 with mixes that differ from the official releases.

Summary: Wohlstandsmüll was a punk band from Hannover/Germany with short songs and a drummer called Konrad K. (of Abstürzende Brieftauben-fame). Here are their complete recordings from 1998 until 2002, 12 tracks in 16 minutes.

12.1.09

With a bit of luck, Liaisons Dangereuses will release these recordings as a boxed set next month. Though the impact of Neger Brauchen Keine Elektronik has been severely narrowed here due to a 48kbps upload (me narrowly avoiding controversy), you can still hear how it was one of the most convincing early stabs at what would later become acid techno. And similarly, that accompanying series of plain, faceless 'artworks', and the fact they were only available for one week from a mysterious shop that closed its doors soon after... it's the blueprint for underground techno all over. The rest of the recordings pioneered more of an EBM/ electroclash style, but in an erratic and uncompromising delivery only DIY cassette recording seems to produce, especially compared to the duller moments on Liaisons' studio effort of the same year. You can download a video of Chris Haas and Beate Bartel performing their more commercial stuff under the Liaisons Dangereuses name here.

CH BB's recordings were bootlegged sometime in 1998, and have done the rounds within hipster circles ever since, which is how I and many others came to hear these for the first time. They were initially released as four C-10 tapes, 50 copies each, and available via special mail order from Rainer Rabowski's Klar! 80 establishment, run from Aachener Street 115, Düsseldorf 4000, for a limited amount of time only.

Sea Wanton apparently did some early cassette reviews for Hamburg's Sounds magazine, though it was in the summer of 1980 when Alfred Hilsberg was writing Sounds' Neuestes Deutschland column, where Hilsberg would be the first to mention, outside of the fanzines, West Deutschland's first real DIY NDW cassette releases (Spex magazine caught on soon after). Some of the earliest self-compiled tapes from Düsseldorf, the birthplace of German punk in and around the Ratinger Hof, were demos sent out in the hope of impressing a label boss or concert organiser. According to Günter Sahler, a free Charley's Girls demo was given away in 1977 with a copy of Franz Bielmeier's Ostrich fanzine, Bielmeier also being a member of that group. Günter recently documented almost every area of the German cassette underground in Edition 4 of his Blechluft publication. The journal, now downloadable in PDF format, is essential for those interested in the early NDW cassette culture (and, of course, for those who are able to read German!), as it includes interviews with all the scene's major players at the time such as Rainer Rabowski himself.

Excluding live bootlegs, Günter goes on to mention one of the earliest DIY tapes to come from Düsseldorf, a recording most of us here are familiar with: Kurt Dahlke's Inland, from 1979. However, because it was soon pressed to vinyl under the name Pyrolator, it can only really be seen as a demo for the official LP release. Deutschdenck, recorded by Ralf Dörper and friends, released the following year, was far more pioneering. Many of the early cassette labels grew out of record shops or previously set up independents, and this tape happened to be Pure Freude's fifth release, so it was not strictly DIY, but because Dörper had no ambition for the project to reach vinyl (not that I'm aware of, except for his Eraserhead idea), its worth as a DIY cassette release through and through stood out. Anyone have the tape? By this time, the cassette was discovered to be a viable option for those unsigned, ill-equipped for a label, and/or plain cynical towards the whole professional route of distribution, which I'm presuming there were many of. The use of the cassette amongst the Düsseldorf artists seemed to be used in a slightly different context to begin with however.

Little gets written about the early 80s cassette underground. It can be seen as one of the first real international networks of likeminded pranksters and practitioners of sound trading cheap but enthusiastically executed ideas, before the internet made the whole thing effortless via shifting the technology and subsequently wiping out the cassette fetish altogether. By 1981, many a tape only label sprung up, and Rabowski's Klar! 80, whom Xao Seffcheque were heavily involved with, was one of the more well known. However, the label's roster was actually made up of groups that were releasing their own vinyl at the same time. It has been said before that the early 80s Düsseldorf scene was pure incest, where artists spider-webbed there way in and out of each other's projects and labels in order to build a scene. Therefore, it would seem to me that the early days of selling mail order tapes in Düsseldorf was simply another cog in the wheel to fuel the activities and discourse surrounding the city as a hotbed for multimedia projects, idea Büros, and alternative network and marketing strategies, all stuff thought up by the Ata Tak crowd. I suspect that a newer breed, detached from the scene but eager to have their own voice heard, was a breakthrough point at which things started to really get interesting. I'd suggest hunting down any WSDP reissues sharpish; you might find some still available from outlets like Fusetron, for instance. Oh yeah, and watch out for that CH BB boxed set, should be a corker.

Following on from the Wirtshaftswunder and post-punk from Limburg special, we have Alvi & The Alviettes and Die Hornissen. Both were the studio creations of Detlev Kühne (Walter Dahn the second half of Hornissen), with help from Tom Dokoupil. Alvi & The Alviettes, with its wonderful I'll Go To A-side, was recorded in the Wirtschaftswunder studios in the small town of Limburg, part of the Limburg-Weilburg district of Hesse in Western-central Germany. For more information on the groups that originated from this town, read the revised Wirtschaftswunder post, and check the informative Limburger Pest site. You can also hear more Dokoupil related works such as Die Partei and the band Die Radierer in the two Mein Walkman mixes below.

Rosita Blissenbach was Alvi's singer, also lending her delicate voice and musicianship to Kühne's (and Dokoupil's) other two projects Die Hornissen and Quick Culture, both on 46 Records. I'm guessing 46 Records was Dokoupil's own private label, though all three plates were jointly licensed to Paradoxx Records. Kühne went on to score music for animations such as the French Les Animaux du Bois de Quat'sous in 1992, and Dokoupil now produces a number of TV and film scores from his Whitehouse Studios in Köln. Die Hornissen relocated in Cologne to finish their album and this is its single. Working from Conny Plank's studio, Holger Czukay was brought in to mix what ever he could muster up from their dire Velvets cover, Pale Blue Eyes, on the A-side. The single was saved from anonymity by one of Dokoupil's and Kühne's greatest masterstrokes, the Hallo! Hallo? (Time Tunnel) (or Zeittunnel) instrumental, which ended up on New Deutsch. This is the re-mastered recording from Thomas Bär's and DJ Hell's compilation. I don't have the single myself, I'm actually unfortunate enough to own the whole LP, one of the worst NDW records (along with R.E.K.) in my collection, and a classic collector's pitfall. As for the beautifully soothing Alvi & The Alviettes B-side, the French piece Mon Amour ended up on a rather interesting early NDW music compilation called Auftakt in 1984, the first LP on Cherry Red's short-lived side label, focusing on Germanic groups, called the East West Trading Company.

Tom Dokoupil was very prolific in his early musical activities. He also set up the Tausend Augen label, producing and overlooking all four of its releases. For some reason or other the catalogue begins at 011, and I suspect there might've been some major label finance or distribution before it quickly collapsed. There wasn't a band on the label that originated outside Limburg. Also, I think a re-issue priced at 0.50 EUR of the Alvi & The Alviettes 7", but with a plain sleeve, might still be available from AtaTak here.

Anonymous said...Please! Put more "Die Hornissen" online. I´m looking for so long for this Band. Regards from Essen, Thanassis

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VK 88- Alles über Atemtechnik DER LETZTE SCHREI 12" 1981

Johannes Vester grew up in the small fairy-tale like town of Bodenwerder, a woodland area in Lower Saxony, where both the Pied Piper and the Baron Münchhausen legends were born. Another famous export from these parts were the Brothers Grimm, whose children's folk tales were an influence following Johannes' own mystical adventures into the world of music, and down a career path that would frog leap from Kosmische Musik to Neue Welle with apparent ease.

In 1971, Vester's early group P.O.T. (Part Of Time) opened a gig for Can. Can brought the group to Cologne, where they eventually ran into Klaus Schulze, offering to cut them a record over in Berlin. Two members bottled it, returning back to the safety of Lower Saxony, but Vester and the brothers Ludwig and Ulrich Papenberg took Schulze up on his offer. Inside a dark basement flat in Claudiusstrasse, near the Tiergarten central park in Berlin, a walled in city full of Cold War tension, student demonstrations, and a burgeoning drugs and art-school scene, the drummerless trio set about naming themselves after the material on which the city was built, and recording one of the all-time Kosmische ur-folk classics: Golem. Even though it was one of a few new records to showcase the Artificial Head Stereo Sound, or Kunstkopf-Stereophonie (beyond Quadraphonic; a concept Stockhausen would have originated), it was a commercial flop at the time, but now cherished by obvious admirers for its otherworldly medieval mantras and bent English poeticisms, merged with VCS3 synthscapes and a haunting atmospheric sparseness.

That was Sand, circa 1974. With Golem, according to the Ultrasonic Seraphim liner notes, Vester intended to awake the spirits of the imagination with 'a minimal manner of expression'. By 1981, this was still the case, but to keep up with the times, they'd be no more childlike pre-industrialised sound worlds created by such methods. This reductionist technique also meant stripping the sound of its previous turn on, tune in, drop out associations. Vester's lyrical vision now meditated upon a cold electronic pulse, indicative of a back-to-basics approach, popular at the time, and born out of the radical rethink the punk movement enforced. So, Vester scrapped the broken English in favour of his native tongue, and delivered one of Germany's most iciest and emptiest minimal synth records ever to hit wax in the early 80s. Maximum results achieved by the simplest means, here is all fifteen minutes of the opener Wir wollen, daß Sie glücklich sind.

Distant echoes of Kraftwerk, Laibach, Monoton, and Suicide seep in like hypnosis, and I think VK 88 best fulfilled Vester's desire to evoke the alchemy in the Berlin air of the late 1970s, early 1980s. I only wish I had a copy. This is one that I don't own and had to snag the artwork and music off a kind soul for; the record simply never shows up, not at a reasonable price anyway.

For those fluent in the language, what can be worked out from the text sheet (Paule's scan)?

It seems that there are Krautrock fans and then there are New Wave fans, and never the twain shall meet. Compared with Sand, Johannes' and Ludwig's Alu were a different proposition altogether. I understand the project is seen by many as two talents hopping the bandwagon. Some other discrepancies; there is often too much guitar on an Alu track, you can't waste killer artwork on a live album, and the Gothic undertones and throaty vocal work of Nadja Moldt can be tough going. Having said that, the pre-Moldt unreleased 1980 debut, issued as Autismenschen in 2005 on Chicago's Crippled Intellect Publications, is excellent, especially with David Tibet's liner notes following on from his brief introduction for the Ultrasonic Seraphim collection, the latter also featuring the unreleased Johannes Vester And His Vester Bester Tester Electric Folk Orchestra! Alu's DIY single from 1981 is included on the C.I.P. disc, as is its b-side Liebe Machen, the most ridiculous reading of Willie Dixon's I Just Want To Make Love To You I've ever heard. It makes me wonder what happened during the six-year gap between Golem and Autismenschen. Minus Ulrich, you'd never know it was the same group.

6.1.09

High time we had a small dose of avant-funk acting as laxative to those constipated Düsseldorf rhythms. Mutterfunk took a modest slice out of the downtown NYC pie, though refused to let it budge the weight of their Teutonic skank. Whichever part of the globe the No Wave meets Disco style might've reached though, it's a sound that, by 1981's closure, was heading back towards the shore, about to get washed up and recycled into a new splash in town; New Wave the second coming, with its diet of hairspray, glossy mags, and MTV on the catwalk. A group or two were still fighting the good cause but try as they might, they wouldn't knock the rise of New Pop out the water. They'd still throw stones from the sidelines though. Nine times out of ten they'd jump ship altogether. The Mutterfunk vibe was less a gatecrash the party, and more a we will fight them on the beaches. Yet the group just chucked it down on tape, no preparations, precautions, you sort it out.

There is a slight ebb and flow to Mutterfunk's cyclical patterns. Like a float on water, you're not quite sure where it'll end up, but dive in you must, because amongst growling aqua basslines and drowning saxophones, slippery synths and guitars like seaweed, you'll find a tightly arranged mixdown of short songs about El Presidente, giant lungs, and how, ultimately, 'every wave is a dead wave'. Includes the 'superhit' Komm Wir Gehen Schwimmen (Come, We Going Swimming), apparently. Before you know it the record's finished. I'll let you research this one for a change!

3.1.09

Click on the title. So I've been enjoying the recent podcasts and mixes from the Post-Punk Junk, Voltage Controlled Technicolor and Worthless Trash blogs, as well as a few others, and thought it was time for the Mein Walkman treatment. To keep this site legit, I haven't listed the first track (they've just put out a boxed set).

Click the title. Stormtrooper recorded a proto-punk demo two years before the right audience for it came along. The rest is similar to the first mix in that it conveniently showcases the odd track or two that I may never do a main feature on. And small apologies to the mod/ powerpop collectors finding this blog out of their desperate attempts to track down that great long lost 7" by Jetz. The song was hijacked from Steve's brilliant Low Down Kids blog anyway, a 40kbps upload (!), and now rounds off an eclectic mix of mostly rare and demented German New Wave (LOL of course it does!). I highly doubt I'll ever find an original myself. Still, it's such a great track it should be in every kind of music mix going. Oh, and Do Po is pretty much an Ital Disco record actually, made a bit edgier here by clipping the mix. It's now a cult classic with minimal synth collectors worldwide.